Fair enough, at least for now I think I'm done with this topic (about God) and ready to switch back to the original one (natural selection) - I think at least there we mostly agree with one another ;)

I admit I sometimes get a bit agitated with this God-stuff, but believe me or not I'm actually quite a tolerant person - actually my sister is a priest and I'm okay with that, and she doesn't even believe in evolution!

Once again I have to admire your patience and skill to produce a mature and reasonable answer on a topic as "hot" as religion - without going into personal insults and petty flaming. Especially when the opposing view is presented by such a sarcastic and cynical person as me (well, I'm not always like that!)

biohazard wrote:I admit I sometimes get a bit agitated with this God-stuff, but believe me or not I'm actually quite a tolerant person - actually my sister is a priest and I'm okay with that, and she doesn't even believe in evolution!

Oh goodness, you're encamped with the enemy!

Just kidding of course. Thanks for the compliments, and thanks for taking the time to listen to what I had to say. Very rare display of maturity, that is.

Generally speaking, the more people talk about "being saved," the further away they actually are from true salvation.

Just wanted you to know that Im not religious either in the sense that I do not follow traditions of men and dogmas of certain denominations. I do go to church, but I may not agree with everything the preacher says, especially if I find no basis for it in the word of God. I've had my share of church politics, hypocrites and self righteous people in my 47 years. But there is a pure faith and it found only in Christ.

Do you then believe in a creator Alex? If you don't mind me asking.

Are you deist--God wound up the clock and let it go--evolution works nicely with deism? Are you pantheist? God is everything and everything is God--I get the sense some evolutionists are neopantheist with the attitude that life will always find a way to create, so in a sense Life would be god. Or are you a Christian who believes in the gap theory or the day age theory?

By the way, you know that neither one of us, nor anyone else saw the Himalayas rise out of the ocean or saw how long they took to come up, so I guess we have to hold to our beliefs on that one. I know about plate tectonics. I guess if you assume that all natural processes have always proceeded at the same rate as today with little change or change in direction, then you could calculate the duration.

But I know there have been alot of catastrophes. I like the one where the scientist theorize that the dinosaurs were killed by an asteroid. And we know what evidence they have found also to come to this theory. Lots and lots of sediment put down very very quickly. Fossils only become fossils under sediment. Slow gradual build up of sediment like evolutionary geologists say will never make a dead organism a fossil--it will decay to elements.

And there are many animal graveyards that show that the animals were carried together--all different types--bones all mangled up and twisted--buried together! Well they have to assign something to these bones, so it was an asteroid. Or maybe...a flood? No! That's religion! But sir what if that's what happened--would it still be religion or the truth?

I mean does a scientist, even if hes gone to school for a hundred years, really know how much rubidium was already in these rocks he's dating when the rock was formed. Its supposed to have evaporated all out but what if all of it doesn't? Or does he know how much strontium has leaked out of the rock. It has not been in a lab, it has been in the elements for many years. What if a rock was formed 1000 years ago that had 1 lb of of strontium and 10 lbs of rubidium. Does that mean all the strontium has changed to rubidium. Maybe water has entered the rock to remove much strontium. This can by all means happen. This is why rocks of ages known less than a century have been dated to be millions of years old!

If you know the scriptures they show us we are in the last days before Christ's return, and before Him will come the antichrist. Thessalonians says the God shall send them strong delusion because men received not the love of the TRUTH. I do not say this in a hateful or judgmental way, but with a heart that is saddened by America's rejection of scripture. Jesus said if you continue in my word you shall know the TRUTH and the TRUTH shall make you free. Jesus loves you!

P.S. You didn't answer my question about the antimatter of the big bang--whoever made it up is irrelevant--seems like alot of people liked the idea.

AFJ, I'll hopefully find time to write a more detailed response this weekend; I'm afraid I'm still caught up in the middle of final exams. Sorry I forgot about your big bang question; I thought the answer was implied but I forgot to make it clear. I'm not really sure what happened before the big bang; there might have been something or there might have been nothing. Either way, I believe in a God who created the universe and everything in it. I'm Roman Catholic. That's why I felt my need to go into my history lesson about how it was the Catholic Church that was responsible for the big bang theory; I'm rather proud of that one!

Anyway, this is about all I have the mental energy for right now. I'll try to type some more later in the week or possibly over the weekend. Later!

Generally speaking, the more people talk about "being saved," the further away they actually are from true salvation.

Alex I am glad that you are not an atheist, at least you leave the possibility for a supreme being, and you seem like a pretty good guy. Feel free to share with me what you are learning, and I hope you will let me share with you some things also.

I was puzzled about the creation evolution issue in my younger years, because I was taught as a child to have a personal relationship with God and trust in the authority of the scriptures. Later I was introduced to the day age theories, and the gap theory which as you might know are a "marrying" of scripture and evolution. I was always jealous for the scripture though and I never accepted or rejected those theories--just shelved them.

I had seen God answer prayer--sometimes with no other natural explanation--in other words I had felt and seen God work personally, and so it was hard to understand why there was so much alleged evidence coming out showing an old earth and that life had evolved.

Then I was able to meet and listen to some scientists and medical doctors, some who had actually obtained their PhDs from Harvard. They saw all the evidence, and all had sat under evolutionary professors, some had believed it in earlier life, and some were converted at college. They amazingly had no problem with a young earth as the scripture accounts and a worldwide flood--they showed much of their own evidence and research to show this--AND showed how worldview (your view of your own existence, origin, and purpose in life) will ultimately affect the way one conducts science, as well as the interpretation of the hard evidence. As can be said "fossils will not talk to you."

Some modern scientists who have accepted the biblical account of creation. Im sure you can google these names to contact them if you need to verify. This of course would not count high school science teachers, or scientists of the past or just after Darwin's time. This is a list of modern day creationists--those who have "come out."

I was privileged to attend a Catholic high school, and during my time there I wrote a theology paper arguing that young-earth creationism is actually a heretical belief system without any sound basis in scripture; I was able to support this argument using scriptural and other evidence. Last semester, in a college-level English class, I wrote a paper arguing the American religious right, composed mostly of capitalists and war-hawks, is equally deceived and that a true Christian would be a socialist and a pacifist, and again I supported this with evidence from scripture. I'm not going to go into any detailed discussion on those points here, since this is supposed to be a science forum and we've had probably too much religious debate already; although if you'd like to pursue that conversation in a different venue, like e-mail, I'd be more than willing. I'm just mentioning it here as examples to hopefully encourage you to at least be open to the idea that the Bible might not necessarily say what you seem to be taking for granted it says.

Anyway, I owe you a more detailed description of radioisotope dating. I believe the question you asked was how one can know the original amounts of the isotopes in question. In short, the answer is that some isotopes of certain elements occur naturally, whereas others occur only as part of a decay process; this means that those that occur as part of a decay process can be indicated as having once been a different element, and thus how much of those there are can tell what the original amounts were.

I'll use the rubidium-strontium dating method as an example. The natural form of strontium is Sr86, but Rb87 decays to produce Sr87, and Sr87 is only produced as part of the decay process of Rb87. Because of this, if a geologist wanted to estimate the age of a rock, all he has to do is examine how much of each of these three isotopes occur in proportion to each other. The ratio of Rb87 and Sr87 to Sr86 can tell him what was the original ratio of Rb87 to Sr86, and the amount of Rb87 that has decayed to Sr87 allows him to approximate the age of the sample.

That's a good brief description and probably the best I'm going to do since I'm a biochemistry major and not a trained geologist, but you can find more info on the internet or, if you find time, a particularly good book I would recommend is Finding Darwin's God by Kenneth Miller, which is discusses this as well as other topics related to the issue. Also, here's a good article, not about isotope dating, but you might find it useful food for thought nonetheless:

How interesting Alex that you use scripture to "prove" that scripture is not literal. That a literal interpretation of it is heretical. How can you use scripture against scripture--either you have not read Genesis or you believe it is some kind of symbolic allegory. If such is the case then how do the scriptures you used in your paper have any authority as they may just be symbolic and not meaning what they seem to say.

And yet you believe wholeheartedly with millions of atheists, like Richard Dawkins, in evolution. Seems confusing to me. I also will not go into a detailed explanation for you are correct in saying this is a science forum. Email is fine.

I would like to say that most of the people on this forum are gracious, but I would ask for the liberty of speaking my opinion about supposedly deviating from the forum. First of all, the subject of evolution is about origins, and there are only two ways we got here--by completely natural forces working in our universe--or something or someone outside our universe. To expect that evolution is going to get a free ticket to the inner conviction of every person without question or contest is not realistic. Especially when their are(though they may be in the minority--a large minority nonetheless) many people who believe otherwise.

Secondly, evolution was brought to us to an unconverted man, Charles Darwin, and is followed by millions of atheists--even if it is held to by believers it is rudimentally atheistic. It's principles are independent of interaction with the Creator so He becomes irrelevant.

Thirdly, evolution flies not only in the face of the Creator but also in the face of one of the most universally observable principles in our world--namely that all designed objects have a designer. If I bring you a globe and tell you it formed itself you would laugh and then tell me that the earth we stand on is the result of chemical reactions, and physics. Can't buy it sorry. Logistically impossible-- and we can not account for all the forces that brought it together by the models offered by scientists. We can't even define a photon and we think we can understand how the world and the life on it was formed?

The crucial detail here is that this is a science forum and thus we are here to seek scientific explanations of natural phenomenon, not religious ones. Your religious beliefs are all well and good, but we live in a world full of thousands of different religions, each one claiming some sort of legitimacy, so unless you're able to back up your beliefs with scientific evidence then you have no more merit than the ancient Babylonians who thought the world sat on the back of a giant tortoise. There are plenty of religious discussion forums to debate varying forms of belief if that is your desire, but here it would be best to try to stick to science and leave the religious topic untouched. Sorry if I sound harsh but so far I haven't seen much in the way of real science in your posts, just religious doctrine.

I'll be the first to admit that science cannot explain everything, but the explanations it can offer are probably a lot more advanced than you seem to be giving them credit for, especially compared to young-earth creationist views that are mere fiction. Sorry to be harsh again, but there is much that young-earth types claim as truth that is blatantly false. After all, if the earth were only a few thousand years old, we shouldn't be able to see stars at night; and yet we do.

If you wish to pursue a religious/doctrinal discussion, feel free to drop me an e-mail:

If you wish to pursue a scientific debate, then I hope you don't mind if I take the liberty to suggest an opening question of discussion. Would you mind explaining to me how, if the earth is only a few thousand years old, we are able to see stars at night?

Generally speaking, the more people talk about "being saved," the further away they actually are from true salvation.

AFJ wrote: We can't even define a photon and we think we can understand how the world and the life on it was formed?

Good grief...

You make it sound like particle physics is something people do in kindergarten! A civilization that is even able to study photons with more precise methods than a lens and a prism is already an extremely advanced one. When you are as close to understanding the basic essence of matter that you can even try to define what a photon is you should also be well capable of contemplating on the origins of life.

And like I've said a thousand times, just because you don't understand something doesn't mean it was just made by god. For Pete's sake, if we used such a method we'd be still in stone age, telling our children that lightning bolts are thrown at us by an angy god. With evolution it is exactly the same thing: you cannot figure out how life has originated, you use fairy tales to explain it. You guys are the ones who wanted to burn Galileo Galilei alive (or whatever it is you do with people who oppose your views) for suggesting that the Earth may actually revolve around the Sun, not the other way round.

You all probably know what happened next: Galileo was naturally wrong and his absurd, heretic theories about heliocentricism were just scientific theories, no match for the Holy Book, and the Earth naturally was and is the centre of all universe. Luckily nobody listened to the scientist and believed the holy men, because otherwise we'd believe in such an absurd concept as heliocentric world! Phew, that was close. Thank God and thank Christianity, once again they saved us from science!

NS is talking about traits not genes not mutations but traitstraits are an organisms physical characteristics

”natural selection, a process that causes helpful traits (those that increase the chance of survival and reproduction) to become more common in a population and causes harmful traits to become more rare” (Ref: Futuyma, Douglas Evolution 2005

thus

NS is invalidated by the fact of speciation as NS only deals with traits [physical characteristics] already present and cant deal with the generation of new species ie new physical characteristics not seen before

A new species has completely new traits[physical characteristics] which were not in an antecedent so the antecedent species could not have passed them on NS is all about the transmission of already acquired traits [physical characteristics]if evolution can take place by speciation i.e. a new species has new traits [physical characteristics] not seen before and are not present in the antecedent species thus NS is invalid as it cannot account for speciation

Consider another example: “vertebrates evolved from invertebrates.” But invertebrate by definition means “not a vertebrate.” Evolve means to change, and a changed thing is not what it once was, by definition. Thus the example can be reduced to absurd and useless repetition: something evolved from what it was not. The end result of the phrase is merely an assumption, not a demonstration. Evolution in this way assumes itself, cloaked in logical fallacy.”

If I bring you a globe and tell you it formed itself you would laugh and then tell me that the earth we stand on is the result of chemical reactions, and physics. Can't buy it sorry. Logistically impossible-- and we can not account for all the forces that brought it together by the models offered by scientists. We can't even define a photon and we think we can understand how the world and the life on it was formed?

Logistically impossible? There is a vast difference between logic and beliefs, i think you are getting them confused, the physics we have now can easily account for 99% of the processes which brought this rock into place, and that 1%? Well we have only been studying these processes for a few hundred years. And what do you mean we cant even define a photon, you speak of it as something simple, even so, its not that we cant define a photon its that it doesn't fit into our classification and a little time will fix that. Now, something that IS LOGICALLY IMPOSSIBLE is the world being created in six days by a being that is nothing and has existed as nothing for all eternity, what would be logically possible would be that someone a few thousand years ago thought very hard and concluded that energy (and therefore matter) cannot have existed for all eternity and that an invisible allpowerful spirit would seem a much more appropriate device for the explanation of existence.

A wise man once said to me:"Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life."

Logistically impossible? There is a vast difference between logic and beliefs

well natural selection being the cause of new species sure looks like and impossiblity

NS is invalidated by the fact of speciation as NS only deals with traits [physical characteristics] already present and cant deal with the generation of new species ie new physical characteristics not seen before

A new species has completely new traits[physical characteristics] which were not in an antecedent so the antecedent species could not have passed them onNS is all about the transmission of already acquired traits [physical characteristics]if evolution can take place by speciation i.e. a new species has new traits [physical characteristics] not seen before and are not present in the antecedent species thus NS is invalid as it cannot account for speciation

Consider another example: “vertebrates evolved from invertebrates.” But invertebrate by definition means “not a vertebrate.” Evolve means to change, and a changed thing is not what it once was, by definition. Thus the example can be reduced to absurd and useless repetition: something evolved from what it was not. The end result of the phrase is merely an assumption, not a demonstration. Evolution in this way assumes itself, cloaked in logical fallacy.”